Digital image technology is being used in an increasing variety of mass-produced applications and manufactured at increasing production volumes. The increased production volumes are due not only to the increasing popularity of conventional digital cameras, but also due to miniature fixed-focused digital camera modules being incorporated into various end products such as portable telephones (cellular telephones) and personal digital assistants (PDA's). Given the new high volume applications for digital camera modules, it has become increasing important for digital camera module fabricators to identify a particular module to ease future servicing of the digital camera modules.
In typical fabrication methods, each digital camera module is stamped with a date code signifying the week in which the imaging module was manufactured. For example, all digital camera modules manufactured in the week of Jun. 1, 2003 through Jun. 7, 2003 are stamped with the same date code, such as “060103.”
Since the manufacturing volume of digital camera modules typically surpasses 100,000 a week, the date codes do not provide for a high degree of precision in tracking an individual digital camera module. Rather, the date code merely serves to place the digital camera module within a pool of over 100,000 other digital camera modules. Due to the imprecise tracking of digital camera modules, upon subsequent malfunction or problem with a specific digital camera module, it becomes increasingly difficult to track the problems with the digital camera module to a particular part, manufacturing technique, or other variance in the individual module with respect to other digital camera modules manufactured in the same week. Moreover, as digital camera modules become increasingly complicated products, more manufacturing variances from digital camera module to digital camera module will occur even among digital camera modules manufactured in the same week (i.e., with the same date code).
Users of the digital camera modules may also experience problems in producing digital images such as discoloration, poor resolution, etc. In particular, a digital image produced by the digital camera module may be slightly blurry, have a pink hue, and/or have a blue hue on a specific portion, region, or on the entirety of the image. Although such problems may be the result of a physical or manufacturing problem with the digital camera module, often times these image problems are caused by the user adjustable image setting(s) of the digital camera module, such as the color filter variation, the gain, the anti-blooming option, the offset, etc.
Upon receipt of a distorted or discolored image, it is often difficult for a user to trace the distortions in an image to the particular settings of the digital camera module used at the time the digital image was taken. It is even more difficult to determine which setting(s) need to be adjusted to remedy the distortion and/or discoloration. Conventionally, these difficulties are not easily overcome by a digital camera service representative or support center as they often do not know what the digital camera module settings were when the digital image was captured, nor do they know manufacturing specifics regarding a particular digital camera module.